A last-minute push to amend the Government’s replacement for the Resource Management Act is being condemned by the Environmental Defence Society, which warns the changes could further weaken protections for Aotearoa’s environment.
The criticism comes as Parliament considers the Planning Bill and Natural Environment Bill, the two pieces of legislation designed to replace the Resource Management Act 1991 and establish a new framework governing development and environmental protection.
The Environmental Defence Society says supplementary amendment papers introduced late in the parliamentary process take an already controversial reform programme further in the wrong direction, with potentially significant consequences for freshwater, biodiversity and environmental decision-making.
Environmental safeguards already under pressure
The latest dispute does not emerge in isolation.
Changes recommended by the Environment Select Committee have already raised concerns among environmental and legal experts about the balance being struck between development and environmental protection.
One significant change was the proposed removal of an explicit precautionary approach from the Natural Environment Bill.
Under the earlier provision, decision-makers considering natural-resource permits would have been required to favour caution and environmental protection when available information was uncertain or inadequate. The select committee recommended deleting that requirement.
The changes also retain a system in which important national direction would flow down through environmental limits, national policy direction and regional planning.
Critics argue that getting those higher-level settings wrong could have consequences across the entire environmental management system.
Development versus protection
At the centre of the reforms is the Government’s attempt to address longstanding frustration with the RMA.
Successive governments have faced complaints that New Zealand’s planning system is too slow, expensive and complicated and can make it unnecessarily difficult to build housing and infrastructure or develop businesses.
Few would dispute that planning processes can be improved.
But environmental groups argue faster development cannot be achieved by simply reducing safeguards designed to protect ecosystems from irreversible damage.
The debate is therefore increasingly about where the line should be drawn between enabling development and protecting the natural environment.
The Planning Bill and Natural Environment Bill deliberately separate much of that work into two legislative frameworks.
The Planning Bill focuses on land use and development, while the Natural Environment Bill establishes the framework governing the use, protection and enhancement of the natural environment.
Environmental advocates fear the overall balance is increasingly shifting towards development.
Parliamentary Commissioner also raises concerns
The Environmental Defence Society is not alone in questioning the direction and speed of the reforms.
The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has raised concerns with MPs and sought more time for Parliament to consider the legislation, including the possibility of sending aspects back to select committee.
One concern identified during scrutiny of the legislation is the extent to which important decisions about the balance between development and environmental protection could ultimately rest with ministers.
That issue becomes particularly significant because environmental legislation is designed to operate across governments.
Rules established now could shape decisions involving freshwater, coastal areas, biodiversity, development and natural resources for many years.
Late changes raise democratic questions
The timing of substantial amendments also matters.
When significant changes are made late in the legislative process, environmental organisations and affected communities have less opportunity to scrutinise their implications than they would have had if those provisions formed part of the legislation originally put before the public.
For iwi and hapū, that can be particularly important where reforms affect wai, whenua, taonga species and the exercise of kaitiakitanga.
Resource-management legislation has long been intertwined with Te Tiriti relationships and questions about how Māori rights, interests and mātauranga are incorporated into decisions about the natural environment.
Changes made near the end of the parliamentary process can therefore carry consequences extending well beyond technical planning rules.
Precaution versus certainty
The removal of the precautionary requirement illustrates the philosophical divide running through the reforms.
Developers and resource users generally benefit from clear rules and certainty.
But environmental decision-making often involves uncertainty.
Scientists may know an ecosystem is under pressure without being able to predict precisely how much additional damage it can absorb.
A threatened species may decline before researchers completely understand why.
A freshwater system can deteriorate over decades, while restoration can take generations.
The precautionary approach effectively asks decision-makers to be careful when scientific uncertainty coincides with potentially serious environmental harm.
Removing an explicit requirement to favour caution in those circumstances has therefore alarmed environmental advocates.
What does this mean for Māori?
For tangata whenua, the consequences of environmental degradation are not limited to conventional measurements of ecological loss.
Damage to an awa can affect mahinga kai, whakapapa, cultural practices and relationships with wai.
Loss of indigenous biodiversity can mean the disappearance of taonga species.
Damage to coastal environments can affect customary fisheries and generations of accumulated mātauranga.
Environmental decision-making is therefore inseparable from cultural wellbeing in many Māori communities.
The reform debate raises a critical question about whether the new system will provide mana whenua with meaningful mechanisms to protect those relationships when development pressures collide with environmental limits.
It also raises questions about how Te Tiriti o Waitangi and existing Treaty settlements will operate within a substantially redesigned resource-management framework.
A system Aotearoa could live with for decades
The Government’s central challenge is genuine.
New Zealand needs more housing and significant investment in transport, electricity, water and other infrastructure.
Businesses and councils need planning processes that are understandable and capable of producing decisions within reasonable timeframes.
But Aotearoa also faces biodiversity loss, degraded waterways, climate pressures and increasing demands on finite natural resources.
That means reform cannot simply be measured by whether consents become faster.
It must also be judged by what happens to the environment after those consents are granted.
The Environmental Defence Society believes the current trajectory risks sacrificing too much environmental protection in pursuit of development.
Supporters of reform will argue the existing system has failed to efficiently deliver the homes and infrastructure the country needs and that a fundamentally different approach is overdue.
The consequences of getting that balance wrong will extend far beyond the current parliamentary term.
Buildings can be redesigned and planning systems rewritten. An extinct species cannot be legislated back into existence, and a degraded awa can take generations to restore.
That is why the battle over these last-minute amendments is ultimately about something much bigger than the RMA.
It is about what environmental inheritance Aotearoa is prepared to leave its tamariki and mokopuna.
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